Introduction: The operating room efficiency is one of the main factors in determining hospital expenses leading to an increase in the capacity of operating rooms, along with an increase in quality and enhanced financial capacity of hospitals. The purpose of this study was to determine the efficiency of operating rooms of teaching hospitals of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences.
Methods: This descriptive – applied study, evaluates the efficiency of the operating rooms of teaching hospitals of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences using data envelopment analysis with data-driven approach, assuming variable returns to scale, during 2012-2014. Output variables were the number of surgeries, timing of surgeries, operating room turnover and the number of surgery cancellations. Input variables included the number of staff in the surgery units and the number of beds in the operating rooms. Data and relevant Statistics were collected from the informatics office of the University. Deap2.1 software was used to achieve the objectives of the research.
Results: According to the results, the average technical, managerial and scale efficiency were 0.893, 0.912, 0.980, respectively during these years. Moreover, the results indicated most of the hospitals had constant return to scale. In addition, overcapacity of operating rooms staff was accounted (14.58 percent) at subsidiary hospitals of Shiraz university of medical sciences.
Conclusion: Removing the surplus human resources, in the form of a comprehensive plan based on the results of the data envelopment analysis, plays a major role in improving efficiency and reducing the cost of hospital and healthcare sector. Also, the results led to recommendations for improving hospital efficiency through potential savings of inputs.